Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: The Rule of Law Finds Its Golem: Judicial Torture Then and Now
- THE ISSUES
- ESSAYS
- Section One: Democracy, Terror and Torture
- Section Two: On the Matter of Failed States, The Geneva Conventions, and International Law
- Section Three: On Torture
- 13 Legal Ethics and Other Perspectives
- 14 Legal Ethics: A Debate
- 15 The Lawyers Know Sin: Complicity in Torture
- 16 Renouncing Torture
- 17 Reconciling Torture with Democracy
- 18 Great Nations and Torture
- Section Four: Looking Forward
- RELEVANT DOCUMENTS
- AFTERTHOUGHT
- Index
14 - Legal Ethics: A Debate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: The Rule of Law Finds Its Golem: Judicial Torture Then and Now
- THE ISSUES
- ESSAYS
- Section One: Democracy, Terror and Torture
- Section Two: On the Matter of Failed States, The Geneva Conventions, and International Law
- Section Three: On Torture
- 13 Legal Ethics and Other Perspectives
- 14 Legal Ethics: A Debate
- 15 The Lawyers Know Sin: Complicity in Torture
- 16 Renouncing Torture
- 17 Reconciling Torture with Democracy
- 18 Great Nations and Torture
- Section Four: Looking Forward
- RELEVANT DOCUMENTS
- AFTERTHOUGHT
- Index
Summary
READERS OF THIS BOOK AND OF THE DOCUMENTS PRINTED IN THE EARLIER volume have abundant information with which to evaluate my contribution and Jeffrey K. Shapiro's response. This audience does not need to be led through the texts. But Mr. Shapiro says several things that deserve reply, the better to facilitate independent judgment. I will limit my comments to those matters.
Mr. Shapiro claims that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memoranda of January 9 and 22 answered the question the client posed. They did their job. He argues that the question posed did not ask the authors to address the Torture Convention or Statute. He quotes as proof the “second sentence” of the memoranda. The first sentence of each memo is also relevant: “You have asked our Office's views concerning the effect of international treaties and federal law on the treatment of individuals detained by the U.S. Armed Forces during the conflict in Afghanistan.” Mr. Shapiro's point seems to be that the second sentence, beginning “In particular,” limits the scope of the inquiry to the Geneva Conventions and the OLC had no responsibility to go beyond them or to explain the perceived limitation.
Of course, both sentences were written by the authors of the memoranda. We do not (yet) have the text of the client's original request.
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- The Torture Debate in America , pp. 236 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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